Avvocato del Diavolo
by Jarick Enlais
Summary: Eragon Shadeslayer, has taken position of the throne, and his subjects are loyal and happy. But an Ancient evil is reawakening, and one man must travel across the land to warn the king. But there are those who would wish to stop him... Will he make it?
1. The Dream

_The jewel encrusted library doors swung silently open on their well-oiled hinges. The jewels, green emeralds, red rubies, opaque diamonds, black and speckled lapis lazuli and the like glittered softly in the full moon of midnight. A thin figure, completely clad in a fathomless black, hooded robe with strange silvery symbols on it stepped into the room. The figure seemed to radiate evil, and when a rush of cool air blew against it, its hood was almost pulled back, and glinting fangs were completely revealed._

_The figure walked farther into the room, letting the door swing silently shut behind it. It ducked under a streaming shaft of moonlight, giving the impression that it did not have any wish to be found. It stifled a gasp of surprise._

_The gold plated shelves that filled the room were filled with tomes, the multitude of which would never have been imagined in its old village. They consisted of every size conceivable, from books as tall as the shelves themselves, to books the size of one's pinky finger. Not just varying in size, the differed in color as well, from the lightest tint of white, to the darkest shade of black. The room itself was an incredible sight to behold. Flying buttresses arched along the ceiling, which was made of glass, so as to give the illusion that there was no ceiling at all. The room seemed to stretch on for leagues, though the figure assumed this was an illusion, like the ceiling. Also, the library seemed to shimmer, as if it were just a reflection on rippling water._

_Resuming its original task, it began to walk along the aisle of books, searching for the one its master—and it— wanted. Striding along the incredibly lengthy rows, it felt drawn towards a particular section. When it reached the section, it became apparent what, and why, the creature had been drawn to. The whole aisle was filled with regular sized books, and they looked perfectly ordinary, but it was obvious they weren't. They emanated such a powerful aura of magic and evil that it would have knocked any normal person over. But the figure was not an ordinary person._

_Looking through the first few shelves, it eventually found what it had been looking for, and with it, a malicious smile of self-satisfaction. Slowly, the figure slid the book out from its dusty keep. Looking fervently around, it drew a small object out from its pocket, and threw the small thing into the air, where it hovered for a moment, then vanished._

_That done, it walked to the nearest table, and stripped the robe, which was the only layer of clothing, from its body, revealing a raven-haired woman with black eyes, which contrasted sharply with her pale skin. She set the book down and sat, flipping through the pages, searching for the proper spell, and found it within seconds, a slight gasp of excitement escaping her lips. She read the lines over and over, until they were imprinted into her brain, and she could see them, even when she closed her eyes. Standing up once more, she assumed the spell casting position._

_Waving her arms around, seemingly at random, she began to recite the spell. _

"Sônoïl áfa nēretazín Enlãfa,_" she exclaimed, the last word being her name._

_And as the last resonating echo died away, her body was engulfed in a brilliant blue light. If it were possible to look into this light, she would have appeared frozen in time, or at least moving much more slowly than normal._

_As the light gradually began to die away, the woman was slowly revealed. Only she was the woman anymore. In her place stood a, rather vicious looking, young man. The now masculine woman grinned in triumphant joy. The spell had worked._


	2. The Beasts

His peaceful sleep was instantly shattered by the horrendous, ear-piercing shriek. It was a shriek belonging to thousands of lost souls, screaming for release from the monstrosity that had devoured them.

He knew what made this shriek and it was nothing good. The instant it ripped through the air, he had been woken. He was prepared for these situations, God knows how many of them he had faced before in his relatively short lifespan of twenty years, and the sad thing was, he had encountered relatively few of these dilemmas.

He cursed and jumped out of bed. The thing shrieked again, rattling the walls of his two-roomed home. He glanced around it quickly, searching for his important belongings. His gaze passed over the flimsy plywood dresser, hand-crafted by him. It passed over his resting mat, and then his actual bed, both also flimsy, made of straw loosely tied together with woven ropes. There, in the corner, he rested his gaze. That was where his necessities were: a long sword, sturdier than anything in this home, made of a steel tinted with a faint blue, small runes lightly engraved in it, swirling, beautiful symbols that could entrance even the most churlish mountain climber. This sword had been passed down through the generations of his family, most recently belonging to his late father. Right beside this sword was a small jug of water with a leather strap attached to it. This rarely ran out of water in these areas, he lived very near a large river, one that was often called the Jiet, but he simply called it his livelihood. This river kept the area very fertile, good for farming, not like he did much of that, and he always had plenty of water. He caught fish for his breakfast, lunch and dinner in the river, and occasionally managed to get larger game animals that came to the river to drink. He grabbed these two items, slinging the strap of the sword's hilt around his shoulder along with that of the water jug's, and quickly glanced around him, trying to gauge what the beast outside his home was doing.

"Why here? Why now?" he asked himself under his breath. "How in all the eight hells did it find me? I've been quiet, kept my nose clean, done nothing to attract attention. So how in the eight hells…?" A thought flickered through his brain that it probably wasn't even from any of the eight Hells, but from the ninth. He immediately dismissed this thought with a wave of scornful rejection. _The ninth Hell? _he thought_. What are you? A child? To be thinking of __such imaginary__ places!_ There were, as was common knowledge among his people, eight hells, each one growing in horror and macabre. There was some thought of a 'ninth hell,' where all the creatures from the preceding hells gathered to form even more horrible beasts, but it was a tale told around fires on feast nights, to scare those gathered. Those thoughts passed through his mind, but they didn't take precedence. The most important thing right now was escaping his home.

He figured the beast was a simple Stet-Ofa, one of the beasts that had plagued his race for centuries. Literally translating into Creature of Evil, the Stet-Ofa had killed his ancestors with their vile breath, sharp teeth, and deadly claws. The massive genocide had led what had been left of his race to create miles upon miles of tunnels underground, allowing his cat-like race to live in relative safety. There were thousands of little underground villages, of which the surface dwellers knew nothing about. He personally preferred his homes above ground, but he would always have a special affinity for the villages he had grown up in; however, it would sometimes get lonely. After all, there were very few who knew of his people, and those who did found that it was rather difficult to be near these peoples, with their yellow-green eyes, fanged dentition, and their soft, quiet, almost sneaky way of speaking.

Although he was pressed nearly flat for time, it was with a gentle fondness that he gazed around the hut that he had been living in the past eight years. Sure, nothing eventful had really happened, but it was his home, and had provided him with the necessities of life. So, with a faint and unhappy sigh, he hurried into the second room. 

In this room, there was simply a dried, brown mat, woven with once green reeds from by the river. Pushing this aside, he uncovered a small hatch, mostly covered with a seasoning of loose dirt. Quickly dusting it off, he opened the hatch revealing a set of step that went down into one of the many underground tunnels. He began to take slow, reluctant steps down, looking back at his home. The beast's roars had returned, and it sounded as though it was prepared to strike his home. It roared it's blood curdling shriek, and, instead of destroying the house completely, simply ripped off the roof.

_Odd… That's strange behavior for a Stet-Ofa… Now that I think of it… This whole time, it's been uncharacteristically silent… Why is that? _As he looked up, he quickly realized the reason for the relative calm. Gazing in horror, he froze.

This was no Stet-Ofa… It was worse._ Oh my Gods… A Stet-Kantusan, a Creature of Devastation and Destruction…_ It glanced down at him, and seemed to smirk at him, though that was impossible… With this glance, memories were brought back to him…

"_Run, my son! Run!"_

"_But father…"_

"_Do it! NOW!" Immediately, his father was grabbed in the jaws of the Stet-Kantusan, it's poisoned fangs slowly injecting a painful acid into his body, burning him from the inside out. "Hurry…" he said weakly, and time seemed to slow… "There is no longer time… Please, Thotiil… Please… Take my sword… It will protect you in times of need."_

_Dropping the sword that he had somehow managed to hold through it all, so Haantus died. There was nothing left to say. Suddenly, as though the world had returned to normal speed, the Kantusan threw Thoriil's father into the air, and snapped him up. Crying and stumbling, using the daemon's distraction to his advantage, Thoriil ran, grabbed the sword, and, dodging most of the flaming obstacles, followed the rest of his village into the tunnel nearby._

That occurred twelve years ago. He had been eight. Reminiscing, he didn't notice when the Kantusan slashed his house, sending it up in flames, until the poison smoke reached his nose. _And here I go, once more, into the tunnels…_


End file.
